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Monday, 30 September 2013

Today was such a day when I've been way to tired and had way too much to do at work for it to be a good day. I felt drained when I came home and just wanted to crawl under a blanket and sleep. But then A called and told me to have a look in his weekend bag - he was in Sweden this weekend - because there was a surprise for me there. And lo and behold: a giant bag of my favorite candy! All for me! So now I'm going to snuggle up in the couch with this lovely thing, the cats and a Harry Potter movie. Good bye Monday blues, hello cavities!

I guess we just had the last bit of summer we will have here in Stavanger this weekend, and luckily this was when M&S came to visit! We rented a car and went for adventures all over the place. We hiked up top Månafossen, we walked around town, we drove out to Rennesöy... A very nice weekend indeed, with some of my favorite people.

Friday, 27 September 2013

A while ago I got kind of a promotion at work. Yay, or something. So when we went to London and I saw (and smelled) this perfume in the TaxFree, I concluded that this would be a suitable gift to give myself for being brave enough to take on new tasks and responsibilities (I was really hesitant at first). The scent is happy, sweet and summery and the bottle has honey-bees on it. Love.

Thursday, 26 September 2013

I'm tired... soooo tired. Right now I have a lot of projects ongoing at work at the same time, and so much stuff I want to get done at home but I lack energy. Today I tried to do something about that by treating myself to a strawberry-slush, and I think it helped a bit! I did get the bathroom cleaned, after all...
It is very simple to make, I just stuffed a banana, some frozen strawberries and some Sprite Zero in the blender. Highly refreshing and equally pretty.

Oh, and you can add a bit of vodka too, if you want another kind of pick-me-up.

Wednesday, 25 September 2013

So, the last and final day of my amazing birthday-present-London-gift-trip I was actually working. My dear A know me very well and realizes that even though I enjoy being an architect, if any zoo would hire me I's probably take the job without hesitation. I could never work in the healthcare system - too much responsibility - but taking care of animals is just wonderful. That's why the "Keeper for a day"- experience at London Zoo suited me just perfectly. I got to spend my day - from nine to four - behind the scenes at this great place, trying out various activities that a zoo-keeper get to do on a daily basis. We were a group of 5 people, me and A included, and we were hosted by the very sweet zoo-keeper Karen. She taught us a lot about all the animals and gave us cake. Prepare for an overflow of happy pictures of a messy Magpie and tons of blurry animals.

We started with cleaning out the giraffe's stables. More fun than you'd expect! Plus we had a spectator... or a quality inspection?

And then we got to feed them.

Then there were some pigs that needed food too. So we (a group of 5 people) prepared about 30 kg of fruit and vegs for them.

Then we got to say hullo to this fellow, Rocky the Rockhopper, and the other penguins, while cleaning at the penguins' beach.

Rocky the Rockhopper

The butterfly-house was filled with beautiful creatures.

Then we got to sit down with these really fast and furry guys, the coatis, related to raccoons. They were running all over our legs, with their dirty little paws and sniffing loudly for treats. Wonderful!

Hullo little monkey that tried to steal my hairband!

One of the weirdest things we got to do was to clean the nose of a giant ant-eater. This animal is one of the most dangerous animals the have at the zoo (!) because of their large sharps claws. So we didn't go in to the cage with them. To clean the nose of a Giant ant-eater you simply distract the animal by grabbing a handful of live meal-worms (uuuuaaaagh) and let the ant-eater stick their super long tongue in your hand while you wash him. This was so much more fun than it sounds, btw.

Mere cats. Cutie-pies.

My favorite event of the day was the lemurs. We were feeding them fruit, and they were sitting on our laps grabbing on to our hand. It was just so great to be that close to such an amazing animal.

Thank you, my Amazing Mr A for this wonderful weekend! I'm so lucky to have you in my life!

Early on Sunday morning A and I took the tube (after a sturdy full English hotel-breakfast, of course) to the docks in east London. This is where my most action-packed adventure for this weekend was to take place. When A first gave me this trip I didn't know what a JetLev was, but he showed me a video on YouTube and after that I was really thrilled that I was going to get to try it! I imagined myself hoovering above the water like Superman...

I got strapped in to the harness and the the very nice instructors told me how to handle this machine. It all seemed pretty straight forward. There. On land... Hold on to handles, lower handles slightly to move forward, lift handles slightly if I get to far down in the water. Lean in to the harness. Go right by lowering right handle - slightly, and so on...

Flying this thing - though I wont go as far as saying I flew it - was an exhilarating and terrifying experience all at once. I was so scared. But it was really cool too! I actually chickened out and didn't go on for as long as I could have, but I would recommend it for anyone brave!

This is NOT me

Mr A in Docklands

To calm down a bit after this adrenaline packed event we went to our favourite bookstore, Waterstones, by Picailly Circus.We always go back to this 5 (?) story store when we are in London, and we always leave with far more books than we had planned to buy. This time I found a least one treasure (the 4th and last book of Buffy season 8, that I've been looking for) and some hopefully great Sci-Fi and Fantasy. Reading Doctor Who, I wonder if that will be any good?

I also did some clothes shopping and then went browsing at Orla Kiely and wanted pretty much everything they sold... I adore that store.

We were pretty tired after starting the day early and running around all over London, so that evening we just ordered room-service and watched Inspector Morse all night. What can i say, I like to relax...

Tuesday, 24 September 2013

As a birthday present for my 30th birthday back in May, I got a trip to London from my beloved mr A. I have been looking forward to it so much all this time, and this weekend it was finally time to go and experience all the fun things he had planned for me. We flew in on Friday after work and just had time to have a drink with some friends from our surf-trip earlier this summer, before we went back to the hotel.

We started the Saturday with a hotel breakfast - luxury! - and then A dropped me off at the Ushvani Spa where I had the most amazing massage. This is a truly beautiful place with really friendly and professional staff, I can definitely recommend it... After the spa, we did some shopping, and A bought pretty shoes from Ben Sherman.

Then we went to have lunch at Bubbledogs, a place that specializes in the rather unorthodox combination of hot dogs and champagne... A great mix it turned out! I had "fourth of July", a hot dog with coleslaw and BBQ-sauce and it was yummy. The place was really small and cozy, with dog-illustrations on the walls and bubble-shaped lamps all over.

After this we did some more shopping until we were hungry again and then it was time for a visit to the Lanesborough for after-noon-tea. Very British and completely lovely. We had even more champagne, but also strawberries, cucumber-sandwiches, scones, cakes... and loads and loads of tea. I went for a Darjeeling, because of the movie... The place was really beautiful and had perfect service so it was a real hit. I kind of wanted to move in there.

We finished the day in style at the Playhouse where we saw the musical Spamalot. Since we are both Monty Python-fans this suited us perfectly! The actors were great and we laughed a lot. But were not allowed to take photos...

Well, hello there!

This is a diary, of sorts, written by me, Annika, architect turned graphic design student. I spent my first 26 years in Sweden, the following 7 in Norway and now I live with my husband and two cats in Brunei, on the tropical island Borneo. Read my blog if you - like me - are fond of traveling, dressing up, reading fantasy, watching loads of Netflix, looking at cats, dancing Lindy hop and eating candy. Occasionally I get creative and, well, create stuff. When that happens I'll most likely blog about it. Welcome!